Growing up in Depression-era Detroit, Robert Derrington developed a fascination for
airplanes. After he graduated from high school, he took flying lessons and on December
7, 1941, he was on his way to the airport for a flight when he heard the news about Pearl
Harbor. In March 1942, he enlisted in an aviation cadet program and eventually his
prewar experience qualified him as a pilot with enough flight time to fly bombing
missions over Burma. In December 1944, on his first flight, serving only as an observer,
his dangerously loaded plane went down over Burma, and he became a prisoner of the
Japanese for the duration of the war. Held in Rangoon, he learned survival techniques
from longtime POWs. Abandoned by their guards on a forced march outside the city as
the British approached, he and his fellow prisoners were mistaken for enemy soldiers and
were strafed from the air by friendly fire.